Liverpool’s Joe Gomez will be out until the new year with a fracture of the lower left leg after crashing into the perimeter wall at Turf Moor on Wednesday.

Liverpool hot on City’s heels after James Milner sparks fightback at Burnley

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Playing at right-back, Gomez was racing down the touchline in an attacking position when a sliding tackle from Ben Mee took the ball cleanly but followed through to bring down the Liverpool player, who skidded over the dead ball line and into an advertising hoarding. Gomez was treated pitchside but was in obvious pain and ended up being carried off on a stretcher. The 21-year-old England player was assessed by Liverpool’s medical staff and a fracture was confirmed, with initial estimates suggesting that he could face a six week lay-off.

Jürgen Klopp said at the time he was unhappy about a number of sliding tackles on what rain had made a dangerously slippery surface, and revealed he asked the referee, Stuart Attwell, to curb the challenges despite accepting they were not fouls. “The players need to be careful at a tight ground with a surface like that,” the Liverpool manager said. “I saw too many tacklers sliding in from some distance, when it would have been safer to take a couple more steps.”

That left Sean Dyche perplexed over whether Klopp was accusing Mee of malice, and what exactly he would have liked the referee to do. “I’m a little bit confused,” the Burnley manager said. “He said there was a sliding tackle from some distance that everyone liked, and that it was a good tackle but you are not allowed to do it.

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“Ben Mee’s was a fantastic tackle and I think Gomez realised that. We send him our best wishes over his injury but it was not from a bad tackle. Football managers can question whatever they want but I don’t think they can reinvent the rules. I thought there were some excellent tackles in the game, and if the suggestion now is that you cannot make those tackles any more then I am happy to be old-fashioned.

“I notice he [Klopp] did not make any reference to Daniel Sturridge cheating. When he went down to win a free-kick there was no one near him, he never got touched.”